This meant that after several days of freedom in the jungle, Esper‘s crew had the ‘graveyard shift’ from 01:00 till dawn. It was our job to be on full alert…
Cruising
Followtheboat: Running aground and sailing defensively in pirate waters
But we had to move on and in this case it meant heading out into the Sulu Sea and the most dangerous waters in Sabah. We made decent going and…
Jungle sailing: Followtheboat on hitting logs and running aground
But first we had one more night in the tranquil jungle. Before it was time to turn in, we took the dinghy though an overgrown tributary to an oxbow lake…
Sailing up river: Followtheboat go in search of elephants and monkeys
The Kinabatangan River has rainforest lining its banks, but just behind are vast swathes of palm oil plantations. This means the rarest animals are squeezed into a small area of…
Sailing up river: Followtheboat take their sailboat into the Malaysian jungle
Sailing deep into the rainforest up the Kinabatangan River (Malaysia’s second longest at 342 miles) is like nothing we’ve done before in 15 years of cruising. Jungle sailing was a…
Followtheboat: Is this South East Asia’s answer to the Caribbean?
Like many worldwide destinations, Sabah’s tourism industry has been hit hard by the pandemic. With borders closed and the Movement Control Order in place for months, most hotels and resorts…
Followtheboat: A new country and a new project
But first we must navigate for the next 22 hours through oil and gas rigs. And we need to time our arrival at Miri Marina just right because the sand…
Followtheboat: What we learned from our worst storm in 13 years
Miri Marina, our destination, is notoriously difficult to enter. There is a long, shallow sand bar on approach and a narrow channel into the marina only navigable at high tide.…
Followtheboat: How we sailed through three lightning storms at night
This episode is all about sailing as we make passage from the Anambas archipelago to Borneo. With an early monsoon transitional season kicking up all kinds of capricious winds, we…
Followtheboat: Borneo rainforest burns and we go back in time
But all the time we were there, smoke from neighbouring Borneo’s rainforest fires drifted across the sea blanketing the island in an eerie pall. It’s something the islanders have become…
Followtheboat: How old is too old to sail around the world?
Sailing channels are selling a lie. We know from our thirteen years on the world cruising scene that the reality of cruising is very different to what most sailing channels…
Followtheboat: Hookworm invasion and on-board medical care
Parasites and disease are rife in South East Asia, as Jamie found out when an uninvited ‘passenger’ climbed on board his foot. Liz diagnosed hookworm, a parasite which is picked…
Followtheboat: The best beach in the world? Add this to your bucket list…
There are no hotels, no resorts, no settlements, no campers, no backpackers, no tourists (apart from us) in this part of the Anambas. Better known bays tend to be sought…
Followtheboat: Top sailing destinations, plus how to pick up a mooring buoy
It’s the new year, in fact it’s a new decade. 2020 here we come! To get us all in an optimistic mood (and out of the winter blues for those…
Fixing an overheated engine, what do you check first?
Cruising anywhere in the world means freedom. On your own boat, you can find and get access to those less visited and more remote areas. The Anambas archipelago, in the…
Anambas Islands: Sailing straight towards a pirate zone
Three weeks prior to our departure there was a successful attack on a cargo ship slap bang along our route. The attackers were armed with one gun and several knives,…
Bats, sharks and turtles: Close encounters with animals in Malaysia
Every night on Pulau Tioman large flying-foxes (Pteropus vampyrus), with wingspans of up to 1.5m, leave the trees in their thousands on the hunt for fruit. On the way they…
Followtheboat: Climbing the mast, sailing 4m waves and dealing with flying foxes
After the six month passage through Indonesia, we take a quick stop at Sebana Cove Marina in Malaysia to check-in and get some boat chores ticked off the list. Liz…
Followtheboat: Insane and scary crossing of the Singapore Strait
Billed as the ‘busiest shipping lane in the world’ (although those of us who have sailed across the English Channel might disagree) we weren’t looking forward to dodging between the…
Waterspouts and running aground: The sailing hazards of South East Asia
That’s when all the maintenance pays off. If we hadn’t kept our Beta engine in full working order we would still be stuck in a deserted bay somewhere in the…